“Intrinsic responsibility” means that the system is designed to send feedback about the consequences of decision making directly and quickly and compellingly to the decision makers.

Small loans available at reasonable interest rates, and classes in literacy and accounting, would produce much more long-term good for the community than bringing in a factory or assembly plant from outside.

Pay Attention to What Is Important, Not Just What Is Quantifiable

In biological systems that power is called evolution. In human economies it’s called technical advance or social revolution. In systems lingo it’s called self-organization. Self-organization means changing any aspect of a system lower on this list—adding completely new physical structures, such as brains or wings or computers—adding new balancing

Contrary to economic opinion, the price of fish doesn’t provide that feedback. As the fish get more scarce they become more expensive, and it becomes all the more profitable to go out and catch the last few. That’s a perverse feedback, a reinforcing loop that leads to collapse. It is not price information but population information that is needed.

One of the big mistakes we make is to strip away these “emergency” response mechanisms because they aren’t often used and they appear to be costly. In the short term, we see no effect from doing this. In the long term, we drastically narrow the range of conditions over which the system can survive. One of the most heartbreaking ways we do this is

GNP is a measure of throughput—flows of stuff made and purchased in a year—rather than capital stocks, the houses and cars and computers and stereos that are the source of real wealth and real pleasure.

The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our

The “letter of the law” is met, the spirit of the law is not.